Punjab cops bust terror module with foreign links

Chandigarh, Sep 11 (IANS) The Punjab Police Wednesday claimed that it had busted a module that was trying to revive terrorism in the state. A police officer said the module had links in Germany, the UAE, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Fatehgarh Sahib district police chief Gurmit Singh Chauhan said that six people have been arrested and one AK-47 rifle and three small weapons have been recovered.

He said the arrests were made after the leader of the module, Satnam Singh, was arrested from Sangli area of Maharashtra Tuesday.

Earlier seven people were arrested Sep 6 by the Punjab Police.

Besides Satnam Singh, others arrested now include Harvinder Singh, Maninderjit Singh, Tarandeep Singh, Tejinder Singh and Bachhitar Singh. Four of them belong to Punjab while one is from neighbouring Haryana.

Chauhan said that after the Sep 6 arrests, the Punjab Police raided places in Maharashtra with the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) there.

He said that a total of 10 weapons were recovered from the module.

Chauhan said that preliminary questioning of the arrested people and the investigations revealed a sinister design to revive terrorism in Punjab by foreign-based terrorists who have motivated and financed local modules for attacking certain leaders.

"The foreign-based layer is headed by Germany-based Babbar Khalsa terrorist Resham Singh and includes operatives based in the UAE, Hong-Kong and New Zealand. The money transfers mostly used Western Union and are being investigated," he said.

"The targets were selected by the Punjab-based terrorist modules and approved by the foreign-based handlers. The module had expanded and included many hardcore criminals," Chauhan added.

Punjab faced a prolonged phase of terrorism from 1981 to 1995 which left over 25,000 people dead.

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